The Islamic State West Africa continues to
utilize women as suicide bombers
Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa
Province, formerly known as Boko Haram
Boko Haram, which now calls
itself the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWA), continues to utilize
women as suicide bombers in northeastern Nigeria and in neighboring Cameroon.
The jihadist group killed three people today in a suicide attack in the
town of Mora in northern Cameroon.
According
to Reuters, a police officer and two civilians were killed after two female suicide
bombers detonated themselves in a car close to the town’s stadium. Early
reports have indicated that the police officer stopped the car for a routine
check before being killed in the blast. The death toll is expected to rise as
authorities begin searching the scene and gather more information. The attack also occurred just hours after coordinated improvised explosive device attacks in the
Nigerian city of Maiduguri killed over 50.
The
attack in Cameroon is just the latest to have been perpetrated by ISWA this
year. In July, a 12-year old girl killed 20 people when she detonated in a
crowded bar in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far North Region. A week
before that attack, two teenage girls blew themselves up in a market in Maroua,
killing at least 20. A few days before, two other teenage girls detonated in
the border town of Fotokol, killing 10 civilians and a Chadian soldier. In
response to these attacks, the regional government banned women from wearing burkas, which the ISWA often uses to mask its
suicide bombers.
The
tactic of using women as suicide bombers has been a common occurrence in
Nigeria over the past two years. In one of the deadliest attacks, on Nov. 27, 2014, two
women killed 78 people and wounded scores more at a market in Maiduguri.
The group’s first known instance of using a female suicide bomber was on
June 8, 2014, when a middle-aged woman on a motorcycle detonated near a Nigerian military
barracks in Gombe, killing one policeman.
The consistent tactic indicates
that the jihadist group is running camps to indoctrinate and train its
recruits. The ISWA is known to have kidnapped hundreds of young girls and women
in order to convert them to Islam, marry them off to fighters, and train them
to conduct attacks.
The
ISWA has deployed at least 42 female suicide bombers in Nigeria and
Cameroon since June 2014, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. The use of women can make it easier for jihadist groups
to conduct suicide attacks, as explosives may be easier to hide, and men are
less likely to search women due to cultural sensitivities. The ages of the
women range from just 12 years old to middle-aged.
The group is not the first
terrorist organization to use women to carry out suicide attacks. Jihadists in
Russia’s North Caucasus are famous for deploying “Black Widows,” who are the
wives of fighters killed while battling Russian troops. Al Qaeda in Iraq (the
predecessor to the Islamic State), the Afghan Taliban, and the Movement of the
Taliban in Pakistan have all deployed female jihadists to attack their enemies.
Despite
a coordinated military offensive by Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon that has
targeted ISWA strongholds in the Lake Chad region, the jihadist group has
maintained its attack tempo. ISWA has launched two suicide attacks in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, over the past months, and
has conducted multiple military assaults in Niger, Cameroon, and Nigeria. In
one particularly gruesome attack, ISWA gunmen assaulted two mosques in the
town of Kukawa in Borno as worshippers were
praying. At least 97 people, many of them children, are reported to have been
killed. Around 800 peopleare suspected to have been killed since
Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari came into power in May.
List of Islamic State West
Africa/Boko Haram suicide attacks utilizing women since the beginning of June 2014:
Sept 20, 2015 – A police officer and two
civilians were killed when two female suicide bombers detonated themselves in
Mora, Cameroon.
Aug 25, 2015 – A 14 year old girl suicide
bomber killed 5 in an attack on a bus station in Damaturu.
July 25, 2015 – A 40 year old woman, described as “mentally unstable,”
detonated herself in a crowded market in Damaturu, Nigeria, killing 14.
July 25, 2015 – A 12 year old girl killed 20 people in a suicide bombing on a
popular bar in Cameroon.
July
22, 2015 – Two girls killed at least 20 people in
separate suicide bombings in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far Northern
Region.
July
17, 2015 – A 10 year old girl and an elderly woman
killed 50 people in separate suicide attacks in Damaturu, Nigeria.
July
16, 2015 – A young woman suicide bomber killed at least
nine people as they gathered to mark the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr in
Damaturu.
July
12, 2015 – Two women suicide bombers killed 10
civilians and a Chadian soldier in an attack in the Cameroon border town of
Fotokol.
July
7, 2015 – A woman killed at least 20 people after
detonating her vest in a crowd of Nigerian government workers in Zaria.
July
7, 2015 – A female suicide bomber detonated her
explosives after she was stopped at a roadblock in Zaria.
July
3, 2015 – A teenage woman suicide bomber killed 12
worshippers when she blew herself up in a mosque in Malari in northeastern
Nigeria.
July
3, 2015 – A woman suicide bomber killed five people at
a Christian church in Potiskum, Nigeria.
July
1, 2015 – The Nigerian military said that six women
suicide bombers killed scores of civilians and one soldiers in separate attacks
in the village of Zabamari Muna near Maiduguri.
June
24, 2015 – A girl, who is thought to have been
12-years-old, killed 10 people after detonating her explosive vest at a market
in Yobe state, Nigeria.
May
16, 2015 – A woman killed 10 people in a suicide attack
in Damaturu, Nigeria.
March
12, 2015 – A woman killed at least 34 people after
detonating an explosive device at a market in Maiduguri.
Feb
22, 2015 – A young girl killed five people and wounded
dozens more in a bombing at a security checkpoint outside a market in Potiskum.
Feb
15, 2015 – A woman killed at least seven people in a
bombing at a crowded bus station in Damaturu.
Feb
12, 2015 – A woman killed seven people in a suicide
attack at a crowded market in Nigeria’s Borno state.
Jan
10, 2015 – A female suicide bomber killed 19 in an
attack in Borno.
Dec 10, 2014 – Two female suicide bombers kill four in Kano.
Dec 1, 2014 – Two women suicide bombers kill five in Maiduguri.
Nov
26, 2014 – Two women suicide bombers killed 45 people
at a crowded market in Maiduguri.
Nov
16, 2014 – A woman suicide bomber killed at least 12 in
an attack at a cellphone market in Azare, Nigeria.
Nov
12, 2014 – A woman suicide bomber detonated her vest at
a teacher training college in Kontagora in Nigeria’s central Niger State.
July
31, 2014 – A woman killed three people after detonating
her explosives at a college in Kano, Nigeria.
July
30, 2014 – A teenage girl killed six people after
blowing herself up among a crowd of students at a college campus in Kano.
July
28, 2014 – A young woman killed three people after
detonating her bomb at a kerosene queue in Kano.
July
28, 2014 – A teenage girl injured six people after
detonating a bomb at a shopping centre in Kano.
July
27, 2014 – A teenager with an explosive device
concealed under her veil detonated her bomb up at a university campus in Kano,
injuring five police officers.
June
25, 2014 – A woman detonated her bomb after parking her
car next to a gasoline tanker at a fuel depot in Lagos, Nigeria.
June
8, 2014 – A middle-aged woman killed a policeman in a
suicide attack at a military barracks in Gombe, Nigeria.
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